


count off the cadence loud and strong

by likecrackingwater (1thetenfootlongscarf2)



Category: Captain America (Movies), captain america: the winter soldier - Fandom
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Travel, memories of war
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-06-10 17:52:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6967144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1thetenfootlongscarf2/pseuds/likecrackingwater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Men in rags, men who froze,</p><p>Still that Army met its foes"</p><p>- The Army Goes Rolling Along</p><p> </p><p>Barnes drags him from the water, but does not leave him on the bank.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The pain blooms under his skin like warm water. His face aches like he's sick with a summer cold and his head is fit to burst. The light is dim but his squints through it. He runs his right hand along the ground. It is gritty. He can smell dirt. The uniform has dried to him tacky. There is a subterranean chill. 

There is someone else in the room.

"You stopped breathing a few times. I thought you were going to die." It was said with no inflection. No emotion one way or the other.

Steve tries to reply but he ends up coughing. The hot rasp in his throat is familiar. Ignoring the ice (and he always does, he's not even thirty) he's only been healthy for four years and a handful of months. He remembers the taste of asthma smokes and pressing sleep that stalked him from September to the last rains of May. When he can finally draw in a breath his mouth is full of mucus. He spits it to the side. It is hot and bitter. Somewhere in his head lingers the feeling of drowning.

He knows a poet did it - the one who wrote about moths. She filled her pockets with stones and walked into a river.

After the water breached his lungs, after he let himself sink, all he could hear under the river was the deep thudding of his heart. It was only a bit warmer then the arctic. The darkness slipped in. 

Now he was here.

"It'll take more then that to kill me, Buck." 

The man with flat eyes looks at him. "Unless you want it to."

At night Steve still dreams of the mess of bodies he'd seen. There was one regiment, paratroopers, who had tried to drop in a village in the sticks. Two of them had been caught in a tree. One cut himself free and ran until he hit some Norwegian resistance skiers. The other had been trapped with a broken leg like a bird in a net. The Germans had found him and shot him where he hung.

The Commandos had been there a week later. A week too late, but they hadn't known. 

Steve coughs again. A metal hiking bottle is kicked over to him. It rattles on the floor. As he reaches for it he realizes his left arm is dislocated. The shoulder burns and he lays there, breathing through the pain. The water is shockingly cold. It almost hurts his teeth. 

"Thanks."

There was no reply.

When James leaves he closes the door. The room has no light.

* * *

Steve has been staring at the dark so long his eyes ache. He can't see better in the dark then anyone else. He's not a cat. During the waiting he can hear his shoulder crunch. If his doesn't set it it'll heal wrong and Buck'll need to snap it apart again.

Once they hit a snag. Tony dropped him from too high and Steve's right ankle shattered. There had been no time. By the time the mission was done the ankle had healed crooked and he could hear the bones grind as he moved. They didn't work much together. The others had just rushed him back to a local S.H.I.E.L.D. base. It had thrown some of the medical staff into conniptions when, instead of loitering for a doctor, Steve sat in a waiting room chair and twisted the ankle back into place. 

He wondered how deep the roots of HYDIA wove. 

The door scraped open. Bucky had cut his hair. It fell to the collar of his new shirt. The jeans were stiff with store starch. Steve could see how new they were. He felt grimy in his clothes.

"Can I get changed?"

He was tossed a knife and a plastic bag. Buck left the door open this time. There was clothes, a few slices of bread, and a can of SPAM. Steve cut himself out of the uniform first. He used a torn piece and the leftover water to scrub down. He tried to use the wall to force the arm into place. It didn't work. Neither did the blade on the cuff.

The shirt was too big. The sleeves gaped around his elbows. By the time he carved the SPAM into strips and layered it on bread Bucky was back. 

"Nice haircut."

The man sat against the far wall. He must have noticed that Steve's arm was still hanging oddly. "Do you still want to destroy HYDRA?"

Steve paused then wordlessly offered Bucky a sandwich. The other man took it. "Sure."

"There's a base nearby. Twenty miles west. You help me clear it and I'll fix your arm."

"What if I try to run?"

Bucky shrugged. "I don't care."

"How about giving me the key."

"Tomorrow."

"What's tomorrow?"

"Planning."

The light was on for hours. Steve had no idea if it was day or night, a morning or an afternoon. The door wasn't ajar as any kind of tactic he could see. Bucky just didn't care. All he could do was wait. 

* * *

Bucky unlocked him. 

The room led into a massive bare space. The floor was painted with stripes. It was setup to be a where-house. On one wall was a massive logo for The Great Southern Cotton Company. The mascot was a grinning gin. It's teeth were too big and white. It looked ready to eat something.

There was a small carpeted conference room. The furniture was mid century and the tiled ceiling sagged with water damage. On the far wall were blueprints. There were fifteen photos posted. They looked like they were taken for employee I.D.s. They are all numbered. One through fourteen were crossed out. 

"Are they dead?"

Steve was ignored. Jim kicked a chair over. James Buchanan Barnes had many names; Buck, Bucky, Jim, Jimmy, _James_ in that scolding way his mother perfected. Now he had none.

He tapped a metal finger on the east side of the map. "We'll come in from the side entrance here at 0620. I already disabled the card reader. The door is propped open because number eight likes to take a smoke break after lunch." From the abandoned wet bar he pulls out a suitcase. There are a few pistols, five automatic .22s and one subnosed .35 revolver. Two tack vests. He divides the knives evenly; three each and the odd one out put back in the case. "Each .22 has thirty shots. You remember how to count them?"

Steve realizes Buck was waiting for an answer. "Yeah."

Buck keeps the .35 for himself. "You did well with the knife in D.C. Too defensive though."

"That was never my problem." The protest is knee-jerk. Once he got into a fight Steve went until the bitter end.

"It is now. Stop pulling your punches."

"What time is it?" He hasn't seen any windows.

"0515."

It was almost time to leave. They pulled on their holsters in silence in different corners of the room. They did not help each other.

* * *

The car was a four-door from the 80s. The plates were white and New York. There was a high grinding in third gear so Bucky kept it in fourth and burned rubber. It had been parked by the crumbing stairs that led to the door. From the outside the place looked abandoned and sealed shut. There was a crude word scrawled in green paint on the rusting door.

There was no one on the back country roads at this hour. Steve could tell they had left the Northeast. The trees were too small and far apart. The air was hot and humid. He skin felt tight, like he had just finished running around the Mall.

The sky looked like it was about to rain.

"We need to find number fifteen." 

That was the uncrossed one. "What about the rest?"

"They die."

Steve watches out the window. There is stubble now and his face itches. He scratches at it. With the .22s they'll have to get close. 

They pull into a parking lot. Bucky puts it in park right past the gate. He leaves it running when he gets out. When Steve tries to follow his door doesn't open. Child-locked. He watches in the rearview as Jim pulls the gate and chins it. 

When he climbs back in Steve says, "Jim -". The car jerks forward. Steve's jaw snaps shut. He almost bites his tongue. Bucky's meanness was always casual. Steve's was always personal and cutting. He had to care about someone to hurt them. Buck stops the car to just past the side door. Steve can see where it is propped open. There are a few signs, _SciCom Testing, Waco Texas_ and  _Please enter through the front door_. The car is still running when he opens Steve's door. While he's watching Bucky pointedly turns the child-lock off. 

He takes point and nine, Steve covering the three and six. The .22s aren't silenced. With almost everything strapped to his right side he feels unbalanced. One of the pistols is holstered to the left side of his vest in spec ops style. His left arm is beyond useless. 

Steve kills the first one, coming out of the women's restroom. Her head is down and she is tapping on a PDA. He can see where her hair is parted. A gun would be too loud so he does what the SAS used to, punch into the neck from the side with a knife and pull forward. It's quick and Steve shoves her back into the restroom. The PDA thumps to the ground. He grabs it out of habit. The door swings shut quietly.

Bucky never turned around.

It is too easy. Too quiet. They pick off ten with little trouble and no gunfire. The last four are clustered in a office. The target is on a desk phone while the others are sorting files.

"I'm telling you, there's been nothing. I'm waiting on word from Ken..." He looks up when Bucky breaks the neck of the closest worker. Steve has a pistol trained on him one handed. 

"End the call." Buky hisses.

The man swallows. He voice is a little higher. "- I'm waiting on Ken. Yeah, I know. Call me if anything changes." When he drops the receiver Buck pulls the landline out of the back. If the man didn't end the call that would.

"I want everything from Operation Fire House."

The man talks as he points. "My name is Mike Weston. I have a wife, Hannah and two kids. Nick and Beth. Nick just got a scholarship to UT. He's going to be second string - as a freshman! I'd really like to see them..."

"Your name is unimportant." Bucky doesn't look up as he paws through the paperwork. He pulls a few things free. On top of a filing cabinet is a laptop bag. He shoves them in. Steve's shoulder really hurts. The pistol is steady on center mass. Weston is a sweater. It's pooling under his arms and spreading across his chest. There is the stink of fear. It reminds Steve of the elevator. 

"What is the code to the base in Tucson?"

"Uh." Weston blinks. "Uh. I think... I think 4376269. It spells 'hero-box' you know? Isn't that-" Bucky has a garrote. The room is quiet except for the sound of chocking.

* * *

They hit the interstate going five over the limit. Buky ignores the tolls.

"Nothing you wanted back at the where-house?" Steve tries not to think of his uniform, the half empty SPAM.

"No."

They pulled over at a rest stop off 1757. In the bathroom Steve took a sink bath then waited outside in the muggy heat for his ride. There was a video camera perched on the edge of the building. He looked into the lens. Maybe Stark was searching for them. Or the remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D. He had no idea how much time he'd lost.

When they were back in the car he asked, "What's in Tucson?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. will rebuild."

"So?"

"I have," Bucky gestured to his head, "words. Triggers, fail-safes, shortcuts, bugs. I want them gone."

"And that's in Arizona?" Either Buck forgot his promise or never meant to keep it. Steve shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 

"The start."

"Am I allowed to get off this ride?" Point-blank might be best.

"Sure." Bucky cut across three lanes then bounced down the exit. He turned on the hazard lights then stomped around the front of the car. There was enough warning that Steve was leaning away when he pulled open the door. "You want this done, Rogers? Fine." He uses his left hand. It is a blunt instrument. The pain is shocking. Steve thinks he might be curling into himself and cursing under his breath but there is whiteness around the edges.

* * *

He wakes up at milemarker thirty on the 404. His mouth is dry. In the passenger footwell are bags of jerky and sport drinks. Steve drains two before he stops for breath. His shoulder is stiff but good. According to the clock on the dash it is eleven at night (wrong it's not noon yet, sun's in the east) and a few hours have passed (which might be right).

"Better?" It's the same flat voice. Broad, generic middle America. 

"Fine." He tears open a packet with his teeth. The meat smells musty. It's real beef. When he first got some in the kaleidoscopic days after the thaw he would drool when he ate it. People always seemed disappointed when he acted like a person, when he fell short of their expectations. 

"You've been out for a while. Where do you want to be dropped?"

Steve struggles to swallow. "Where are you going after Arizona?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"What I find."

"Will you keep in touch?" The look Steve gets is flat disinterest. He tries again. "What do you remember?"

"Everything up until the third round of electroshock. After that, I was only pulled out for weeks at a time. It's still fuzzy. In the 60s they tried a Rosie Kennedy for wipes instead of throwing a switch. Computers were better by '83 so that's what they stuck with. It's been coming back for a bit. Think bouncing my head off a few things made my healing focus for once. So, everything, more or less." The blankness is nerving. If Bucky drops him Steve will loose the trail. It's not something he wants to think about.

Steve offers him jerky instead. They chew on it for a while. Soon they are chasing the sun west. They find sunglasses in the glovebox.  There is also a plastic photo carrier. There are only a few shots, the kind taken at Sears, a whole family grinning with something to prove. On the backs someone took the time to carefully write the dates. The last one was taken in May of 2000. They were processed in Wayne. New Jersey. 

Steve put it back where he found it. 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Nate Mcvay had died alone. His body was curled under the flimsy laminate of his desk. There were bullet holes stitched across the surface. The carpet had dried hard and thickened with blood.

Bucky hadn't said anything as they pulled up to the storefront. It looked like a shabby travel agency. There was film of scum on the window. Inside the air was  parched and cracking.

Steve smelled the death from the door. The framed posters - Paris, Ciaro, Bangkok - were faded by the sun.

They had changed cars somewhere in the middle of the night. He helped Buck collect the trash, every scrap of themselves, and then burned it in a trashcan. Things were different in Arizona. The can was plastic and melted as the trash burned. They rolled the car into a gulch. Climbing out Steve scraped his plans on rough gravel. Around him still hung the plastic stink.

Now there was the body of Mcvay and the code. It opened a drawer of files. The lock was a line of rotating numbers like on an adding machine. They took everything. Half was in German. Words Steve half-remembered from the muddy streets of Austria.

Bucky pryed the side of the computer tower, used small tools to remove the hard drive. He also took Mcvay's ID. It had a chip like a TWIC card.

With nowhere else to go Bucky opened the laptop bag. There was a portable computer inside. The card gave him access. It wasn't protected by much. Someone had written their password on a post it affixed to the screen. When he typed the metal fingers ring in a hollow way.

The gym next door had free Wi-Fi. They piggybacked on it.

Steve let Bucky work. He thumbed through some of the papers. There was Fire House. A mission in Tel Aviv in '86 involving an Indian embassy suite and a British under-secretary. According to Natasha there had been over two dozen kills attached to Barnes. Compared to the carnage of the grinder of battle that was nothing, in terms of numbers. There were other measuements that he was avoiding for now.

"You are not much good to me," it was flippant. Bucky was peering at a shaky PDF as he spoke. Steve tried not to be offended and failed.

"What?" Steve pushed the files together with the edges of his fingers.

"What can you do that is useful to me?" The soldier's eyes were clear but distracted.

"I'm not too bad in a fight."

"You need to blend in." Bucky met his eyes, looked away again. He tapped some keys. In a corner the printer sputtered to life. "You have nightmares."

He was fine. Steve knew that there was stress. He could deal with it.

"That can be fixed." It did not sound like an offer.

Steve barked a laugh. "What? Want to talk it out?" There was something squeezing his chest, just behind his heart. Physical perfection and he still felt like he was dying.

"No." Bucky packed his things away. He tapped the pages and then shoved them into the desk Steve was using. "Load up. We hump in ten. I'll bring the car around."

This car was less cramped. It was a compact can in faded purple. The headights were hazed with age. When the chair was pushed back Steve could stretch out his legs.

"I could drive."

"Do you know where we are going next?"

"No."

Bucky handed him a battered music player. It had a small screen and the toggle wheel. Steve turned it on. There were hundreds of audio books; mostly languages with a small section of biographies with titles like THE SPANGLED PLAN and HYDRA: INSIDE THE MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS OF NAZI GERMANY.

"You can learn while you sleep. Do you remember any French?" Bucky didn't wait for a reply. "Start there."

Steve did as he was told. The voice was feminine. She soothed as they swung northwest, "Welcome to Learning with Listening, Beginning French. Section One Part One: Basic Conversation. Hello, bonjour. Hello, bonjour. Hello, bonjour." Everything was repeated three times. He didn't feel like he was learning anything. Around them was the cracked earth. The desert was sandy. It looked nothing like France, the memories he had of it.

Sure, he picked up scraps in the rural areas. Nothing useful. Steve struggled though Latin like he did everything else. Bucky didn't speak for hours. His eyes were red and slightly bruised.

They pulled off the long two lane at a small shack. It promised buyers a burger meal for two fourty, tax included. Steve didn't have any money. He folded away The media player. He was surprised how quiet it was outside the car. The only thing in his pockets was a piece of glass the size of his thumb and the PDA. Bucky looked it over then let him keep it. He used the buttons to play Tetris. They clicked under his fingers.

There were a few dozen contacts, all last names and departments. None of the emails were unread. There was an invitation to a company wide BBQ. Did they know that a whole building, a whole roll of employees were part of a cult? S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't known. Fury had said the future could still surprise him.

The burgers were wrapped in red-white checked paper. The bottom of the bag sagged with grease. As Steve ate he hand to lick his fingers clean. The fries were harshly salted. The water was in plastic bottles. Bucky ran the bottle top along his fingers like a magic trick. He crushed it in his palm.

"There is a lot we need to do."

"What's that?" Sam had made noise about services from the V.A. Groups and events and medical care. Steve didn't need that. He needed to be left alone. The Avengers was Fury's dream, something to give Stark purpose, to give others a place to channel their rage. Steve hadn't had options. He had no other skills.

"HYDIA is weak. Cut off one head..." he made a slashing motion. "Right now there are loose heads. Like a snake. They are directionless and blind. Waiting to latch on and full you with poison."

"So we fight them."

"You're not good enough." Bucky looks at Steve's shoulder. It's still swollen. There is a tight icy seeping under the joint. "It shouldn't be moved for a week."

"We can lay low..."

"I know a place. You must be operational."

"I'm not an asset."

"You were. You were made for a purpose. So was I."

"It was different."

"Why? The intent? Was S.H.I.E.L.D. protected by their's?"

Steve looked away. The place was empty for miles. A few vultures hung in the blue sky. They were tattered in the stillness. It was getting bad. He had his own opinions but they were slippery. He couldn't be caught up with Jim's vendetta. Steve had goals of his own. He just needed to figure them out.


	3. Chapter 3

He blinks his eyes with dry mouth and the aftertaste of rubber on his tounge. What makes him really wake is the clean air. It is cool and he draws it in deep. The sky is a dark Atlantic blue through the window. Steve can't tell the time. There are no clocks in the room so he pads downstairs.

Jim is sitting at the kitchen table. He is haunting in the darkness. On the top of it his hands are spread open.

"Hey." Steve says.  He doesn't lurk at in the doorway.

Bucky finally looks up.

"You were screaming again."

"Oh." Steve takes a seat. He twists his hands on his lap. Buck's been getting better at talking, less likely to dish out orders. It's been about four weeks since he was pulled from the water and they've settled. He's still got a trick shoulder but it should be good soon.  
Jim had nothing in front of him. He was staring at the pitted wood. They ate carefully; ate mostly potatoes and cabbage and boiled meat. Things that kept long and filled them up. The house was in a community that had foreclosed before half the buildings were done. Steve can see the skeletons from the front door. They are thirty miles from Nomad, Wyoming.

"I made I.D.s." Jim pulls them from a pocket, slides Steve's across. It is a driver's licence. His birthday is listed as 6 July 1989.

"I'm twenty seven?"

"Aren't you?"

Steve shrugged. Jim tapped his on the table. Then he asked, "What were you dreaming about?"

"I thought you didn't want to talk."

"Tell me."

Steve rubbed his eyes. The nightmare was slipping away. He was already forgetting the beginning so he started with the memory of it. "We were west of Dresden. I think we were trying to intercept a Hydra FOB that the French had found. So we followed the railroad tracks."

Buck just watched him from his seat. His eyes were locked on Steve's face.

"Don't you remember?" It was desperate. Steve didn't want to remember. He didn't want to talk about it, how they smelled it first, then saw the fence rising in the distance like a warning.

"Why don't you tell me?"

"It was a work camp. Somehow Germans were tipped off so they shot who they could and tried to burn the rest. Monty called it in. Easy found one too. But we had less men so we just stood outside the fence and had to wait until the medical corps came. We couldn't feed them. Nothing, not even water. We stood there and they cried and I didn't even know what they were saying. I couldn't even think. It was this yawning horror in the back of my mind and all I could say was, "oh God, oh God". I wanted to go home so badly, Buck. I was so scared and so sick. And you talked some and we all waited for hours. Then they cut the gate open and moved us to the next RV so we could finish the mission."

"Was that the dream?"

"Pretty much."

Jim rolls his shoulders. The false arm clicks in its socket. "Go back to bed."

Steve freezes, anger kicking in his chest. "I'm not a child."

Jim slips his I.D. away as he stands. "Get some sleep. I'm going to."

Steve watched him go. When he disappears into the hall the anger goes with him and Steve is left with shaking hands and the aftertaste of fear.

* * *

"You only had one week of basic. Loosen your grip. You're not beating the dummy with it."

The handle is slippery in his hand. Steve blinks the sweat from his eyes. The dummy is wood covered in fleshy rubber. Every time he brings the knife foward Steve can feel his stutter of hesitation. Buck is watching carefully.

"Don't hold back. From the shoulder, not the elbow."

He goes again. This time he doesn't think too hard just lashes out and the blade slips in easy. It reminds him of the woman, the part in her hair, the soft thud if her body. Buck just nods.

"Again."

The shoulder is better so they switch sides. Steve could always take a hit but he took them too head on. When Bucky swung there was a flash of white and Steve stumbled. The hand holding him up was like stone.

"Come on, relax."

"Its hard when you keep hitting me." Steve shrugged the hold off.

"Don't get hit." Jim repeated the punch and stopped it short of Steve's head. "Again."

They go until they are both sore, muscles clenched and skin tight.

 

* * *

Sometimes he leaves without Steve. The house is modern, with an open floor plan and empty walls. Steve put his fist though the wall of the closet in his room. As far as he knows Buck hasn’t found it.    

“I thought this was about Operation Firehouse?” Steve had read the file so many times he had it memorized.

“I wanted to check something.” Jim had cut his hair again. It was modern and nondescript. He hadn’t made Steve dye his hair. Hadn’t made him do anything but train. “I needed the file for that.”

“Okay.” Steve caught himself before he crossed his arms. Sam had been telling him about body language. He had told Steve a lot. Maybe things would have been better if Steve had listened.

The numbers for him and Natasha sit in the back of Steve’s mind. If Stark was keeping tabs they would have been ferreted from the warren by now.

“You should take a nap.”

“Stop trying to get me to sleep.”

James stopped, halfway out the front door. He paused. “Listen, I know you’re having a hard time. Just try, alright?”

It was the old refrain from when Steve would wheeze on every breath, fever hot and wracked with chills. Just try. It was a good thing no one lived with him after his mother died. He made enough for rent and kept his head down.

 “Sure.”

The door shut firmly. Steve stands in front of it for a long time. He can’t stand the bed so he lays on the couch. His back is flush to the seat cushions, head on the armrest with a good view of the front door. Steve’s neck is pressed to the armrest and it hurts a little. It hurts to swallow but somehow he falls asleep.

* * *

Steve wakes up under his own power but Buck shakes him away. He’s grinning, just a bit. It fits his face. There is a blanket tucked around Steve’s shoulders trapping in the heat. His toes are still cold.

“Dinner.”

They don’t talk though it. There’s a ball game on the radio. Minor league and the local team is up three at the end of the seventh. It reminds Steve of them catching the score from the newsies during lunch, trying not to get caught crowding by the cracked open window. The sister would herd them back into their seats. He usually had some bread. Buck would carve his apple into to chucks and casually trade for gossip or marbles or Steve’s doodles. Jim was still doing that, keeping his glass full of water, keeping a few smokes tucked to the side for a medical emergency.

They each had an apple tonight. The skins were green, the flesh bright white and bitter. Steve chewed it slowly and set the steam aside, cracking the seeds between his teeth. Jim was methodically carving his wedge of cabbage. The announcer called for the stretch.

“How’s the books?”

“They’re fine.” He stays up into the early morning struggling to memorize each sound until they blend into a roar.

“Your French is getting better.”

After dinner is usually when he gets quizzed. If this was anyone else Steve would have left days ago but he never learned to stop with Bucky. He was still focused on the cabbage so Steve asked, “What did you do today?”

“I went to see if the CIA moved on an old safehouse.”

“Hydra?”

 “No. A sister origination. They didn’t tell me much. Just,” he mimes firing a finger-gun. “I’ve been collecting maps. You know how fussy those bastards are.”

“They’re also good at compartmentalizing.”

“Which is why S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t full to the brim. They just knew who they needed and where.”

Steve looked away bitterly. There was anger he hadn’t felt in years and it made him sick to swallow it. “What next?”

“We lay low.”

It made him nervous. There was ache in his teeth. “I swore to burn them out. They’re evil.” To give his hands something to do he filled his glass then took a sip.

“I’m not too eager to go hunting for revenge. No good borrowing trouble, Rogers.”

He rubbed his face. “No. You’re right. I…” Steve sighed. It was no good. He was too wired to sleep, too tired to fight. “I’m going for a walk.”

There was a bite to the air. He felt like he hadn’t left the house in days. He hadn’t. There wasn’t a need beyond the pressing of the walls. Something small screamed nearby. A bird cooed from a clutch of trees. It was so dark he could see the haze of a city on the horizon. Coming back east they had cut through the Rockies. The switchbacks made Steve dizzy. It was easier to sleep in the car.

That was when Jim started talking. He knew his own mind well enough, sometimes let Steve parrot back the stories to hear his point of view. They didn’t talk about anything after Buck fell.

He saw the list once. Bucky kept it in his wallet. It was two sheets of unlined acid-treated paper. Each name was carefully preserved in Palmer script with a location and date. That night in Colorado he started with one of the big ones.

“Remember December seventh? We were at some art class you were taking. The President came on the radio. I can still remember the stink of paint, the exact expression on Alife’s face because he was the first one I saw. The teacher cried didn’t she? Just cried until she sat on the floor. Then we walked home and it was so quiet. Everyone had gone inside somewhere with a wireless. I remember them crowing around, seeing their faces though the windows. It was the strangest thing.”

Steve had just listened. They had been very high up, the rock in staggered walls on either side. He remembered it too. It wasn’t something you just forgot. Every once and a while he would remember it suddenly and vividly. There would be tile just like in the room or he would grip a pencil the same way and it would play out like Buck said, like a movie behind his eyes.

Buck had shrugged then asked, “Do you remember?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you tell me?”

Steve did his best, but he found it so long ago some details were hazy. The hazards of getting older.

Now he stood in the dew wet grass and tried to remember what Bucky was like before. It was hard. He looked a lot like George Barnes now, the same wear. Steve was pretty sure the first picture Jim ever got was for his enlistment docket. His had been.


	4. Chapter 4

Absolution isn't something he remembers with fondness. When he was learning about confession he found it difficult and painful; not the kneeling or the cramped stall with lattice-work windows but scraping the sides of his chest raw with all the wrongs he had done.

He didn't remember much of his schooling. It was hazy on good days. Sometimes he would get a flash, having to carefully read with aching eyes, ignoring the tears which would leak as he tried to track the marching letters. Rote facts: the presidents and the rules of Lent. Taking a look at the plate illustrations of the Papal Apartments.

Bucky had been shedding the tough skin of his own schooling. He was making eye contact. He was enjoying himself. Over the last few days he spent hours bouncing baseballs off the brick facades of the houses. The nightly quizes faded into conversation, Steve trying to translate the indescribable mysteries of their childhood. It wasn't close to what they had before. That was an easy friendship. That kind was simple. This was harder. This was relearning how to stand, how to walk.

Steve sighed over the files. As time slid past Jim seemed less interested. It worried at Steve like something caught between his teeth.

Earlier Bucky had crept downstairs. From below came the groan of the bag on its chain. Ten minutes, twenty-five, thirty; Jim's boots were heavy as he mounted on the exposed wood of the stair. 

"Did you hear?" 

Steve looked up. "What?"

They lived most of their lives in the kitchen.

Bucky flopped into his chair. The legs squeaked on the laminate. His skin looked matte with sweat. Steve closed the file. 

"What?" He repeated. He felt so tried. When he slept Steve clenched his jaw, which made his inner ear ache and his teeth feel tender.

With practiced movements Buck shucked a match from the box, struck it, cupped his hands around the cigarette. The smell was a memory. His teeth flashed. "Oh, just..." 

When he breathed out the smoke went with. He was pleased. Grinning at some personal joke and he leaned towards Steve. They used a whiskey sniffer as an ashtray.

It was like a magnet. This was how it always started back then, boredom and the flicker of some bright half idea.

"How're you doing?"

"I'm good." There was something in the news this morning about Ross. He was petitioning Congress for more oversight. He wanted S.H.I.E.L.D. under the Department of Defense. Cartlow from the N.S.A. and the F.B.I. were fighting like gutter rats for the targeting software. 

Hammertech's board was trying to take Stark Industries to court for favoritism - a monopoly of government contracts. They were being propped up with funding from half of Silicon Valley, from Bell Com, from Boeing.

Natasha had been served. Sam might be tried in absentia, but he was laid up at Bethesda and no one wanted to touch him. The VA hadn't fired him yet.

Steve was declared M.I.A. forty hours after DCFD had smothered the flames. The Senate and House wanted to have a funeral. It was rejected by the Army - M.I.A was permant until the soldier was recovered. Jim was still M.I.A., technically.

It made Steve feel hollow. 

How was this their life?

"I know you're angry." 

"Sure." The glass of water left out from last night tasted metallic, sour. Buck let him finish it.

"I was thinking. We deserve a break. No Hydra, none of this spook bullshit. Know why?"

It had been almost two months.The restlessness was winding Steve like a spring. He was waiting. He didn't know what for and it filled him with exhaustion.

"Why?" He didn't feel like guessing. He knew that look. It ment egging each other to goose traffic, bounce rocks off the tin cover of a chimney flute until they were chased off. When they were older it was muckraking or sitting near some ten piece bass group, close enough to feel the music in their chests, smell the sweat and the beer.

Bucky laughed. "The war's over."

Something trembled in his chest. The glass was clammy between his plans. "What -"

"It was in the papers. Can't get more truthful then that." Jim laughed again. It was unbearably sad. "V-E Day, they called it. Victory in Europe."

He was waiting for it, the other shoe. Nothing happened.

"That it?"

It felt anticlimactic. Bucky was looking off to the side. His cigarette had no filter, just paper and tabacco and spit. "Jesus, Stevie." 

Bucky was crying, not hard and not much, but he was crying. "Jesus Christ, the war's over."

His fingers were clammy and Steve's struggled to clamp around his hand. That made it real in a way nothing else had. Bucky was here and -

S.H.I.E.L.D. had been woefully unprepared for him. They had been thrilled to find his body, thrilled to thaw it and then do what - would they have buried him at Arlington or back home, the only body in the Rogers plot, his mother somewhere upstate and his father still interred in Somme? Christ, he had been at Flanders. He had been there. It hit him where his heart was. Wasn't that a romantic notion, Steve marching above and Joseph somewhere below.

"Oh, God." The sound was punched out of him. "Oh, God." Steve couldn't hold onto whatever it was; the emotion that gutted him hurt too much. There was a plane overhead, the roar in his head. Buck was dragging him out of the chair. Under his knees the floor was hard and it bruised and Buck's arms were hauling him in. 

Steve could taste the static of shock on the back of his tounge. There was something sitting on his chest that made it hard to breathe. He was crying so hard his heart hurt, so hard he coughed on uneven breaths. 

"I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't... I..."

He was gripping Buck's shirt too hard. Steve's knuckles ached. He could feel wetness along his neck, Bucky gasping ragged. They were drowning here on dry land.

"I really thought we'd make it, kid." When was the last time Bucky called him that? Years, well before his mother passed.

Steve was nodding then, even though he had never thought about it, but it had been assumed. They were supposed to go home. "It wasn't fair." He shuddered because that wasn't enough. "I don't... What did we do, Buck?"

"I don't know." His nails bit into Steve's back and it hurt yet it was good. God. It wasn't fair. No one them had gone home. Once they crouched in the mire, shuddering with the chest deep beat of the bombardment, none of them went home. They had left something of themselves there in the mess and the dark.

As it faded, the manic fear, Steve let Buck pull him to the sink. They stood shoulder to shoulder, blew their noses then scrubbed their faces hard with sopping washcloths. Bucky's eyes were red. Steve could see the places where he had been hollowed out. He could feel the same gaps, the same thin skin.

They pulled the cushions to the floor and slept though the afternoon.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To a hundred years.

His mouth was cotton dry and sour. Bucky was behind the wheel again but this time they were heading East, riding the Federal Highways. They were built in 1926 and there had been a bit of fanfare but it hadn't interested Steve as much as the places they led to. He hadn't gone much further then Yonkers, in all his life, until the USO swallowed him up. 

Steve had an arm resting along the window and his go bag on his lap. There was a water bottle rattling in the cup holder. 

There were sometimes when Buck looked at Steve or read something and would pause awkward and uncertain, like he was just remembering he left a stove on. Other times he would be - not groggy - but they would have the same conversation.

That morning they had woken in a cramped motel room with thin pressboard wood.

"Where did I put my licence?" He had asked Steve. There was a pinched expression with tight eyes. He had cut is hair even shorter, tighter on the sides. It made him look older and Steve couldn't quite look him in the eye. 

"I don't know. Your left pocket?" There was where Bucky used to keep the keys to his parents' place. The first time he had a room to himself must have been when HYRDA left him strapped to that damed table.

The licence was there along with twenty cents. He tucked them away. Then Bucky had gone to the bathroom. When he came back he asked: "Where did I put my licence?"

"Left pocket, Bucky." And it was there again.

The third time was after he had tied his shoes, patting at his coat and running fingers along the open teeth of the zipper. "Steve. Where did I put my licence?"

"Front left pants pocket."

He would wake up a few times in the morning and always think it was seven exactly. Try to pay the bill twice or think it was days behind and once forget six hours of driving and thought they were still in Wyoming. The repetition made Steve nervous. This wasn't anything he knew about.

  
When Bucky squared himself away they finally got into the car. It was a newer model Ford with torn fabric roofing and itchy seats. The headrest was too hard and Steve smacked his head on the frame the first time he clambered in.

Bucky had laughter at him only a little. It was only on the highway proper that Steve noticed the file boxes in the footwell. They were empty.

"Buck," Steve twisted around. The five stacked in the back were empty too, the lids strewn on the floor. "Bucky, where are the files?"

Bucky cracked his neck. The noise made Steve flinch, reminded him of his mother trying to scrape marrow out of needle-thin chicken bones.

"I left them in the room. We won't need them, so Ness and his like can take up with it."

"This isn't mob business," Steve protested. "This is HYDRA. We're the only people who know what they're capable of." Had it been for nothing? The hiding and lying and the woman whose PDA he had left, drained, at a rest stop ten miles from anywhere.

They maneuverered around a line of eighteen wheelers and a bobtail.

"I don't think we are. The Bearu and the rest of the Agency are still standing. Just because you dropped the DC office into the river doesn't mean that Orlando and Dallas and Chicago and the rest ceased to exist."

"SHIELD is gone." It had been the only thing he ever asked if Fury. The only thing.

Bucky clenched is jaw. "They won't be gone. This ain't something you get rid of. Not without digging down to the roots -"

"I know: cut of one head and- "

"This has nothing to do with HYDRA. Nothing. Don't you get it Steve? This isn't just some personal grudge or a bit of military coup. Three ships. Ten million people. That's the camps - that's them all from top to tail."

They were entering Ohio and the state capital looked jumbled and overgrown.

"And you need a break and I need to get my head on. Someone else will pick up the slack." This was a the shock talking, the cowardice even he had felt at times when it was very dark and very cold. Once they came across a solider coated in ice and still alive. Even his skin had frozen to the ground. They took shifts lying next to him. He just never got warm though. Steve could remember how grey he looked. He was young and had young eyes and his nailbeds were white and his fingers black.

"Really? That's your plain?" Captain America never faced discipline for cowardice. None of the unit had. There were a lot of things that never crossed Phillips' desk.

"Did you have one? Be honest. Christ, for once in your life be honest with me."

"I'm always honest." Steve could feel his face clenching up. There was a pressure behind his eyes, in the top of his throat. He looked at Bucky's ear, the wear up on his face. The other man sighed.

"Would it be about HYRDA? Or would it be about me?"

"You deserve a fair trial!"

"I'm not going to get one! That's ship sailed the minute they... The minute they..." Bucky groaned and rubbed at his left eye. He still didn't look over. "I can't talk about this right now." He turned on the radio and spun the dial to an AM talk show. There was a flower show at the convention center.

"You're the one who..."

Bucky rolled down his window and pointlessly raised the volume. The pressure thronged the inside of Steve's ears until he cranked his window down too. All he could hear was the rushing of the air. It was cold and felt almost like water. He didn't like the way it moved over his skin, made it clammy to the touch.

* * *

Outside of Gove City, off Route 80, they stopped for dinner. The sun was low. Trees were crowded along the road. They had reached the cloverleaf when Steve's stomach growled loudly. Buck had just shrugged and pulled then into 58 Bucky came out with styrofoam boxes and led the way into the park. They cut between a line of motor homes.

"Looks nice." He said as they passed. 

"Pretty roomy." Steve agreed. The sounds of a late night show rose a faded. They meandered into the park, following a trail past a fountain. It must have been turned off for the night and few few birds were bathing in the water. Bucky didn't seem to have a destination in mind but Steve knew it when he saw it. There were a couple of baseball diamonds. Instead of going to the short stands or the dugout they made their way to the outfield. They sat down and Steve could feel the dew soak his jeans. The boxes were stuffed with tuna sandwiches. Bucky ate his pickle first, flicking away the seeds in annoyance when they got on his fingers. The view was a familiar one. The bases, the mound, the latticework fence. 

Steve lay back and started sifting though the green. It was mostly grass with clusters of shamrock. Every time he thought he found a four-leaf one it turned out to be a trick of the light. If he looked up hard enough he could see the sky moving overhead. 

"What's the point of this?" He finally asked. 

"Hum?" Bucky was distracted by something, blinking hard. "What's that?" 

"What's the point of all this? Are we going to bum it until we run out of money?"

"We've been out of money."

Steve covered his face with his hands. He felt wound up and like the punchline. He hadn't been that in years.

"I'm taking a break."

"You're cracked, is what you are." Steve replied but there was no heat to it.

He could hear Bucky chewing. The boxes squeaked as he moved them aside. When he lay down Steve could feel the heat coming off him. 

"Just getting some rest, is all."

"Fine." When he pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes he saw white.

 


End file.
